I push the door open enough to step inside.
He is standing at the sink near the showers, still in the kit trousers but with the jacket off and folded on the bench. The helmet sits beside it. His sleeves are pushed up, a towelis draped over one shoulder, and shaving foam clings in a stubborn line beneath his jaw.
The beard is gone.
Oh.
That is my first thought.
Not a word.
Not even a proper thought.
Justoh.
Because the beard was not hiding a weak chin or saving him from a difficult face. The beard was hiding softness. Not softness as in weakness. Softness as in youth. Openness. The kind of mouth that looks more dangerous without careful framing around it. The kind of jaw that makes him look less like a man auditioning for authority and more like one who has nothing to prove to the world.
He looks infuriatingly good.
Not going there, Pippa!
I step further in and keep my face professional through the sheer force of being a woman who has survived twenty years in a job where men mistake facial expressions for invitations to speak.
“Well?” he asks.
I look at the razor in his hand, then at his face. “You survived.”
“Physically.”
“Emotionally?” I ask.
“Too soon to tell.”
“You’ve missed a bit.”
His hand goes to his jaw. “Where?”
“Left side. Under the jaw.”
He turns back to the mirror, tilting his head.
“No, theother left.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is from where I’m standing.”
He squints at his reflection and drags the razor carefully along the wrong patch of skin.
“No,” I say. “Stop.”
He freezes immediately.
That matters. He jokes, and he performs, and he talks too much when he’s uncomfortable, but he does actually listen.
I take one step closer.
“Here.”
